After the high-profile firing of the Richmond teachers union president in June, the School Board is weighing whether the division should automatically grant labor leaders up to one year of unpaid leave for union management. 

Superintendent Jason Kamras’ administration has said it opposes the move, which would require the district to give the time off from normal duties if requested rather than leaving the decision up to officials’ discretion, because of the vacancies it could create in a school system already facing staff shortages. According to division data, 141 teaching positions and 21 support staff positions were unfilled at the start of the school year. 

“From my perspective it really depends on vacancies,” Kamras said at the board’s Aug. 20 meeting. “Once we got to a place where that wasn’t a significant issue, then I would have far less concern about granting that leave. But that’s really the driver as I see it at this time.” 

The union meanwhile has argued the practice is both common around the U.S. and a critical tool to help mediate relationships for the thousands of employees it represents. Furthermore, they say, Richmond Public Schools traditionally gave such leave to the president of the Richmond Education Association prior to the 2021 introduction of collective bargaining. 

“I want to remind us the reason why we adopted collective bargaining, which was to address staff turnover. We want to ensure that we’re able to keep our professional, experienced staff in the building,” said 3rd District member Kenya Gibson this August. “By giving our staff and our unions the ability to sit at the table to impact their working conditions and therefore impact student conditions, this is why we do that.” 

Much of the board has expressed mixed feelings on the idea of making the unpaid leave mandatory rather than discretionary. This August, it agreed to put off a decision until December, asking Kamras for more information about alternatives and how common the practice is elsewhere.

“At one time,” said Cheryl Burke, the 7th District representative and the longtime former principal of Chimborazo Elementary, “the person that was the [REA] president always was on leave per se. But this was during a time when teachers were plentiful. … We’re not in that position right now.” 

Where does union leave exist?  

Sometimes called “union release,” “union business leave” or “official time,” the practice of giving union representatives paid time off from their normal duties to conduct union management activities has been in place at the federal level since passage of the Civil Service Reform Act in 1978. 

On the state and local levels, the picture is more patchy. In a 2017 study published in Public Personnel Management journal, public affairs professors Thom Reilly and Akheil Singla noted union leave “at the local level has received almost no attention.” 

Their research, however, found the practice is “common among local governments.” According to their study of public employee groups in 77 major U.S. cities, 72% had access to some form of union leave. In places with collective bargaining agreements in place, the leave “is most often paid (87%) versus unpaid and the city most often is responsible for financing the leave (59%) in its entirety or through cost-sharing arrangements (25%). The union was solely responsible for covering these costs only 16% of the time.” 

At the time of the study’s publication, only six states, including Virginia, prohibited collective bargaining for public sector employees. 

But despite, or perhaps because of, its prevalence, union leave has also sparked backlash. In particular, conservative groups and lawmakers have sought to either sharply curtail the practice or get rid of it altogether on the grounds that taxpayer dollars shouldn’t pay for union work. 

State courts have taken different stances. In 2021, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that paid union leave for teachers didn’t violate the state constitution, saying, “The release time provisions serve a public purpose.” But this August, the Arizona Supreme Court found the same type of practice violated the Arizona Constitution, concluding it ran afoul of the state’s “gift clause” preventing the government from giving public assets to private players.

Public sector unions have consistently argued leave, whether paid or unpaid, is necessary for union leadership to conduct negotiations with government officials, assist and represent members through grievance processes and mediate lower-level disputes that arise in an effort to keep them from escalating.

Four or seven vacancies? 

In Richmond, the School Board is considering only whether to automatically grant unpaid leave if a leader requests it. 

How many individuals would be affected by the policy change, however, is in dispute, with Kamras saying it could lead to seven vacancies and the unions four. 

The policy under consideration states that “upon written application to the Superintendent, an employee shall be granted an unpaid leave of absence to serve as an elected officer of an exclusive representative certified by the School Board. The exclusive representative shall decide which officer shall be granted unpaid leave.” 

Kamras has said the policy would affect seven employees, because there are seven collective bargaining units. A recent presentation by the administration to the School Board identifies the seven units as licensed personnel (a group that includes teachers), support staff, Central Office employees, school-based office associates, transportation, custodians and facilities and administrators (directors, principals and assistant principals). 

But Anne Forrester, vice president of the REA, said that interpretation is a “misunderstanding.”

“A bargaining unit is not the same as an exclusive representative,” she said at the Sept. 9 board meeting. “That term simply means ‘union,’ and there are four unions that represent workers in RPS. … So really it would be four leaders on union leave, not seven.” 

The collective bargaining resolution passed by the School Board in December 2021 defines an “exclusive representative” as “an employee association certified by the School Board pursuant to this Resolution to represent an employee bargaining unit in the collective bargaining process.”